The middle of May, and Sunday dawned with powerful cold winds and heavy showers promised at any time, thunder possible! The ride was also planned to be quite a long one - south of the M40. So, not the most benign conditions and I wondered if many people would be there as I approached our start rendezvous.
Yes a hardy, if smaller group than usual was there, and although we muttered about the weather, we were soon off towards Amersham. A bit of main road to start with and then we were through the pleasant, if hilly, lanes round Ley Hill. A stiff climb to Amersham and we arrived at the very efficient cafe for morning refreshments. Our route then took us down to HS2 country and in Little Missenden an awkward puncture held us up. Then climbing to Holmer Green, Peter's gear cable snapped inside the pod. It proved impossible to get the broken bits out of the casing in spite of plenty of advice from well-intended bystanders. So a temporary, get-you-home repair was all that could be done.
Even the fattest tyres go flat - Little Missenden
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A map can be useful around here.
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Gear cable broken inside the pod
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Arriving at Chenies Church for tea
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Time was getting on and it was already nearly 1.00 pm. We continued through Penn and were soon passing the entrance to The Royal Standard of England, so we decided to get lunch there instead of carrying on. The place was packed and we had to sit outside in the cold wind, but the excellent food came very quickly. An improvised route from here took us through nice lanes passing Jordans Quaker Meeting House and Milton's cottage to Chenies Church and tea. But it wasn’t a day to linger and from here it was back home through fairly familiar lanes. The threatened rain never came so it was a great day out if not quite what had been planned.
50 miles
Richard 11/05/2014
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